


Vernalagnia

by UnluckyAmulet



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: 1920s, AU, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't @ Me, F/M, Fluff, In which Tommy picks May, May is best girl, Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22294327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnluckyAmulet/pseuds/UnluckyAmulet
Summary: In which May returns from the Derby Day, hurting and ready to let it fade away. But there is unfinished business between her and one Tommy Shelby...
Relationships: May Carleton/Tommy Shelby
Comments: 12
Kudos: 61





	Vernalagnia

**Author's Note:**

> Y'know it always, always seems weird to me that Tommy/May gets so much build-up in Season Two and then she just vanishes without a trace in Season Three, then comes back in Season Four. It's like the producers had written May to be the girl Tommy picks, but then found out Charlotte Riley was pregnant and wouldn't be able to return to do Season Three, so the last episode got quickly rewritten. Anyway, here's my version of what might have happened if Tommy picked the lovely May back then.

She goes home from the Derby in her silly red dress and prepares to stash it, and her dreams, away.

May sighs and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. She shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. Didn’t he warn her at the stables?

_There’s someone…_

The girl who was supposed to be sailing away. The secret. Passably good-looking, though not as beautiful as May had imagined. For a man like Tommy Shelby to still be interested after two years (May did her homework), but she supposes it hardly matters now, whatever she looks like.

Tommy has made his choice.

It’s silly, the way her chest aches as if it’s missing something that was only recently there. She had thought after she lost her husband that nothing else could hurt her like that again. She swam in pain, then. She’d wake every day feeling like the weight of the ocean was bearing down on her and she’d choke and gasp for air, wondering if it was possible to drown by her own tears.

Her father had held her up, stopped her from sinking. He knew what it was like to lose someone – May’s own recollections of Mama are misty and vague, but when she became a young woman, her father would look at her with such pain in his eyes. They never spoke about it out loud, but May knows that for her father, Mama has never been a distant memory.

 _Enough of this._ May thinks sternly to herself as she holds out a foot and allows the made to remove her muddy riding boots. She could and would do it herself, usually, but she often gets the sense that the maids want to do more than what she asks of them. They’re probably bored, with only one mistress to attend to in this big, expansive house. May has guests over all the time, but no matter how many they are, they never seem able to quite drown out how their voices and footsteps still echo.

“Will there be anything else, madam?” the maid asks her. “Some tea, perhaps?”

“No, that’s quite all right, Winnie,” May says, managing a smile. “I’ve had a long day. I think I’ll just retire for the evening.”

Winifred accepts this with a nod and a smile of her own, but her disappointment is clear as she leaves. They really are bored, but May isn’t in the mood for witnesses to her melancholy at the moment. She’ll speak to them tomorrow, maybe.

_“You don’t know maids.”_

May closes her eyes for a moment, as if it takes all of her concentration to banish the phantom image of Tommy Shelby from her mind. He’s proving rather insistent about staying there, unfortunately, even if he isn’t so keen to do so in person.

May undresses, holding out her red dress and inspecting it in the low lamplight and she knows she’ll always think of the Derby when she looks at it, no matter where else she might wear the dress. It’s a shame, it’s a beautiful colour and a fashionable design, but the memories stain it far worse than any mud could hope to. They cling like perfume. She’s almost tempted to fling it on the fire and watch the flames chew through it, but that seems melodramatic. Maybe she should give it to Winifred, instead.

Sensing that sleep will not come easily to her that night, May pours herself a drink. Brandy, to warm up the numb feeling that has settled inside her like snow.

“Cheers,” May murmurs to nobody, before swallowing a mouthful. 

It goes down warm and sweet and she has to remind herself to drink it steadily, instead of dashing it all down in one go like she’d seen some of the girls at the Derby doing, which was tempting. One woman in white had been steadily drinking most of the afternoon, though judging by her red-rimmed eyes and the shaking hand that held her cigarettes, May deduced that this particular woman was in dire need of it.

Her bed feels enormous to her, the sheets impervious and unwelcoming to her presence. After considering it, May wriggles out of it again and moves towards the window – her room is hot, since the fire has been kept burning all evening and she wants to breathe in fresh air as she sleeps, not wake up and feel suffocated. She opens it a crack and peers out into the night. It’s a clear sky, the moon close and round above the grounds. The closest houses are all dark, so when May peers out into the distance, it’s like there’s nothing anywhere but trees. She shakes her head and slips back into bed, shifting to get comfortable.

There’s the horse, too. May thinks dryly to herself. What was she going to do about that? It seems unseemly to continue training Tommy Shelby’s racehorse, given the name it bears and the circumstances around it, but he’d already paid her to do it. Until today, she had enjoyed doing so – May is never happier than when she is with her horses. But, like other things that had brought her joy, it appears as though it’s not meant to be. Maybe she should just send the money back. 

Another thing for her to deal with later. She’s too exhausted and despondent to be making rational choices at the moment, and the brandy is starting to kick in – a dreaminess engulfs her, filling her head with a fog that isn’t unpleasant. May stares at the dwindling fire as her eyes begin to close, voices floating through her mind.

_No regrets, May. No regrets._

~

Birdsong wakes her.

May’s eyes flicker open. It is not quite yet morning – the sun is just pulling itself over the horizon, as if too had a difficult day previously and the grounds are still coated in an early-morning mist that always reminds May of being out at sea, like the house is its own little island.

She’s an early riser, courtesy of her horse-riding, so she sees no reason not to get up. Her mouth still tastes of brandy and she’s glad that she stopped at one. It seems like a good time to try getting into the habit of sensible decisions.

May rises and heads for the bathroom, splashing water on her face, rolling her eyes at her reflection and begins thinking of what she needs to do today, tomorrow, all the days sprawling out before her. She knows she’s being pessimistic, to think of the time as just tasks to complete, so she steps back into her room to get dressed.

Only, she stops.

It’s like he arrived with the dawn. A figure in black, standing boldly in the middle of her bedroom, staring at her with those eyes that remind her of a crisp January day.

“Tommy,” May says, her voice sounding quiet even to her own ears. “What’s happened?”

He looks tired, she realises. There’s a heaviness in his posture and shadows in his face that weren’t there before. Something important just happened to Tommy in the last twenty-four hours, but she doubts that he’ll explain himself. He rarely answers questions, after all.

“A few things,” he says, his voice slightly hoarse. “But they’re done with, now.”

“Are they?” May asks.

Perhaps her tone is a little arc, or perhaps he could read the wariness in her body. Either way, he fixes her with a look that freezes her in place with the intensity of it. She wants to look away, but doesn’t.

“Yeah. They are.” He replies.

And he crosses the room to her in three strides, just three, and then he’s pulling her in, kissing her hungrily, hand on the small of her back. May reacts instinctively, wraps her arms around his neck, sinking into him. She’s never said it out loud, but she loves the way he holds her to him, solid and warm and here.

For a few minutes they just kiss, but there’s so much exchanged between those kisses, the way his lips part and she does the same, a meeting of tongues, before it’s back to their lips again, all of it tingling with a pulse that jumpstarts her heart, like he’s waking her body from hibernation.

“It’s done, then?” May asks, and she doesn’t doubt for a second that Tommy was doing more than just attending the races that day. “And she really has sailed away? For good?”

She’d like to pretend she doesn’t care, but she does, and she knows Tommy knows it too. Might as well bite the bullet and just ask the obvious question. Tommy’s thumb traces her cheek and when she looks up at him, his pupils are huge, threatening to eclipse the slim circle of blue surrounding them.

“We’re not like your fuckin’ goldfish, May,” Tommy says, “Life’s too short to forgive and forget. From now, the past stays where it belongs.”

May finds herself nodding at that, even though it wasn’t a question. He pulls her in closer, his lips ghosting up her neck.

“It’s you, May,” he tells her huskily, and his words and his lips send a shiver through her. “It’s you I want.”

And she knew that Tommy Shelby gets what he wants. A smile curves her lips and she releases a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“And I you,” she answers simply.

It’s enough, because she feels Tommy smile against her skin before his hands slide up her back.

No more is said as he guides her back to the bed, which is still warm. She feels vulnerable in just her nightgown while he’s in full attire, but it doesn’t last long. His coat and hat are removed in a way that manages to be both swift and strangely elegant at once. Her heart skips a beat as he climbs onto the bed, kissing her like a man starved. He looks down at her lying there, as if to drink in the sight of her, like he can’t believe she’s really there.

His hands slide up her thighs and May watches him, nearly shivering with anticipation, as he takes his time with it, the silk of her nightgown exposing inch by tantalising inch of her.

The silence stretches as he gently tugs the material over her head, tossed into some corner of the room. His body is both beautiful and flawed, pale and muscled, littered with scars and tattoos that speak of pain that runs far deeper than mere flesh. May by comparison is soft and smooth, it gives away nothing. His fingertip traces her bottom lip.

“Look at you,” he breathes, his voice rough with want. “Fuckin’ beautiful.”

The contrast isn’t lost on May. A man as violent and dangerous as Tommy Shelby shouldn’t be capable of undoing her with a few simple words, but he is. Perhaps that’s the most dangerous thing about him. When he kisses her like this, when he touches her, his hand sliding between her legs, the rest of the world simply floats away. He strokes her firmly, fingers expertly reaching to a place that makes her gasp out loud, while his wicked mouth marks her skin. It pleases Tommy to leave his stamp on her, and he can see by how she squirms and how dark her eyes are that May likes it too.

It's not like before his name leaves her mouth in a rising cry, pleasure sweeping over her in such a fierce surge that all she can do is surrender to it. Not that May minds.

She pulls Tommy down to her as he finally enters her, needing – no – demanding skin on skin, the feeling of his body on hers. It’s been so long and she has been so alone, and the notion that she never has to be again…well, can she really be blamed for getting greedy for that feeling?

Tommy rests a forearm above her head, bracing himself as he moves and May drags her hand up the shorn side of his head, tugging at his thick, dark hair. He growls softly and sends more heat chasing down her spine in the most delightful way.

“Tommy…” May cries out, gasps punctuating every sound she makes. “Oh…Tommy…”

“Yes,” he responds in barely more than a low murmur, but the way he says it is everything. “That’s it, May. That’s it, my girl.”

She doesn’t know, exactly, if he planned this from the moment he set off to go to her. Perhaps he knew as soon as he saw the house, or when he climbed through her window, but even if he didn’t plan it, this seems inevitable. Their coming together like this, it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

Her fingernails dig into his shoulder blades as she comes, her body tingling with the pleasure of it, a tightness in her melting away with the peaceful euphoria that follows. Tommy groans against her ear, pressing his lips to hers as he collapses beside her, spent. They lie like that for a stretch of time that feels much longer than it is, and May combs her fingers leisurely through his hair. When Tommy walks into the house, it’s like she can breathe properly again for the first time in years.

She wonders if perhaps she chases away the darkness inside his head.

“Penny for ‘em,” Tommy says beside her.

She glances at him and isn’t surprised to find he’s lightning a cigarette, propped against the pillows. He offers her one and he takes it, letting him light it for her.

“I was just thinking that you won’t be needing to stay in the guest wing anymore,” May says and Tommy gives a snort of amusement.

“No, don’t suppose I will,” he says, smoke furling from between parted lips.

She studies the planes of his face, the sharp angles of his cheekbones and jaw. He has a cut by his eyebrow that’s new – she suspects it has something to do with the cryptic ‘business’ mentioned.

“Have you thought of one yet?” she asks him.

Tommy takes another drag of his cigarette before speaking.

“Thought of what?”

“A new name,” May says, smiling as she takes a drag on her own cigarette. “For the horse.”

Tommy didn’t answer that immediately. Instead he turned the question over in his mind, like a shiny new penny. He hadn’t been wrong when he’d told his men that Derby Day was going to be a big one, but even he couldn’t have foreseen just how big it had turned out to be.

A man discovers the truly important things, when he’s about to die. He knows that better than anyone. And the image of himself kneeling in a fucking field, knowing that everything he’d worked to the bone for was about to slip away…

He turns and looks at May. She knew something about being lost too. But she was here, and now that Tommy had found her, he didn’t want to let go again. With the past dying behind him, sure as the mist was dispersing beneath the rising sun, the future was Tommy’s to grasp with both hands.

“Springtide,” Tommy says and he likes how the word sounds aloud – crisp and clean.

“Springtide,” says May and he likes it even more in her accent. The sun is high enough now that it lights up her face, and her smile is warm as she turns her body towards him. “I like it.”

Tommy nods, removes the cigarette and leans over to kiss her, her lips parting for him like a flower.

With May beside him, the bleak midwinter fades away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! (Hope you liked the title, it took me forever to pick one.)


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